I haven’t done a cleave poem for a long time and thought I was due for a bit of self-inflicted punishment. I’m adding it to the dverse open link night because these poems are so hard to write, and I’m pleased with the way this one turned out.
If you don’t know what a cleave poem is, it’s a three in one poem. Each side is a separate poem to be read vertically, one side dark, the other light, opposites. But they can be read horizontally as a single poem too.
Loud the city silence sings the moon
Breaking glassy fragments in a sea of darkness
All about the brittle stars blink and listen
I stop my ears to the swell tide’s refrain.
Though scraps of anger ride on peaceful calm,
White or red sails full of dawning
Grow round and full like moons on water
Fruiting in the heat lily blossoms, reflections
Of a summer night in a still forest pool.